Diamond Hime
by Always Keep the Faith
Summary: Hitsugaya dies a traitor during the Diamond Dust Rebellion. At least, that's what everyone thinks. Imaginary friends are normal for little kids right? But Kagome's family grows more and more concerned as the girl doesn't seem to be growing out of her imaginary friend Shiro.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own jack shit. Bleach and Inuyasha are owned by way more important people than me.

A/n: I have not been keeping up with the Bleach manga but I know it has ended and I lament the fact that my otp RukiaxIchigo didn't happen. Oh spoilers. Sorry not sorry. I only watched the anime and even that was a really really long time ago, so I'm going to get a lot of Bleach facts wrong. To make it even more non canon than a crossover already makes it, this takes place some time in the middle of the Diamond Dust Rebellion movie and veers way way off course.

* * *

Toshiro braced himself against a tree. No, he couldn't fall like this, cut down by former comrades. He still had work to do. The snowy haired boy stumbled towards another tree and used his sword to keep upright. He needed to bring down Kusaka. It was his responsibility.

With every drop of blood he left as a trail, the disgraced captain came closer to the ground. The tree line broke and he laughed dryly at the sight. A cemetery? How fitting. Coughing blood into his hand, he took stock of himself. His ragged cloak was more brown and red than beige now and he could tell his reishi body was barely keeping itself together. Not surprising as he had been fending off captains and lieutenants from all sides. Hitsugaya actually was surprised he lasted this long, being the youngest of the captains.

He wanted to examine the crime scene again and so had returned to Soul Society. He didn't deserve the label of 'prodigy' for such a mistake. Disappointed accusations of injuring Shunsui met him and the kill order was set. He barely escaped to the Living World but not before being impaled by a grinning Kenpachi in consequence of dodging a fatal blow from Senbonzakura.

"Break's over," he gritted out as he pushed himself to standing to face the approaching reiatsu. He was mildly insulted they didn't even bother to hide their spiritual pressure. 'Because they know they don't need to at this point…'

His sword came up to block on instinct and his eyes widened at the newcomer. "Urahara…"

"Oh ho ho. What good reflexes you have while at death's door," the store owner said as he stepped back.

"What are you doing here?" Hitsugaya didn't relax, still watching for the original source of the reiatsu he had sensed.

"I'm here to save you of course. Such a waste to have someone of such honor and talent be sentenced to death. And one oh so adorable too! You're going to be a looker when you're older," joked the former captain.

Despite his situation, Hitsugaya found the energy to be pissed off and a vein throbbed at his temple.

"If you aren't going to help, leave. Somebody's about to join us." The fugitive turned his gaze away and held his sword at the ready.

"I would say I'm happy to see you here but I really am not." Soul Society's resident mad scientist captain appeared with Nemu by his side.

"Oh if it isn't my old student. Figure out how to use all my old inventions yet?" The blond hid his eyes underneath the rim of his hat.

"I don't have time for this. This is prime opportunity to test out my new creation." The clown-faced shinigami pulled a ray gun out of seemingly nowhere. "Behold! My reishi particle destabilizer!"

"Oh! That's interesting since I brought my new reishi particle condenser with me." Urahara revealed a pen shaped device from his sleeve. "Toshiro-san, hold still now, I don't think this will hurt."

"Hold on! None of you are testing anything on me!" The 10th squad captain gritted out as he pointed his sword towards Mayuri. "And I'd kill myself before I'd let you be the one to defeat me."

"Oh, come now. Chances are, your form will explode into reishi particles instantaneously before you could even register the pain. No clean up necessary. The most efficient, no hassle way to get rid of bodies. Or really anything. Haven't tested it on such a large body though. But you're not much taller than the goat I evaporated last week…," the head of R&D mumbled to himself. "Nemu, get ready to record notes."

An angry tick mark would've appeared on his head if Hitsugaya wasn't in such a serious situation.

The tip of Kisuke's pen started to glow and a visible ball of bright light grew at its end. "Don't worry Toshiro-kun, your reishi form will be condensed into a ball no bigger than a gumdrop soon. Temporarily of course. It'll seal up all those oozing holes in your body until I can get you a doctor. Basically, a gigai alternative to stabilize broken souls in the short term. You'll be able to restore energy much quicker, but that's partly because you can't do anything at all while in that form...you'll look kinda like a mod soul. You'll be super easy to transport! Fit right in my pocket! And nobody will be able to follow you either since your reiatsu will also be contained."

"Well, I'll know." Kurotsuchi interrupted.

"I'm not worried about you. The student has not surpassed this teacher yet," Kisuke aimed the pen at the bleeding captain.

"Wait a sec-" Hitsugaya switched his sword to point at his supposed savior.

"Why you-!" Captain Kurotsuchi also took aim.

Simultaneously, two beams of bright light reached out to the young captain. He went to throw himself out of the way but both rays hit him in the leg and then his form started to glow.

"Hmm...Nemu, make sure you're recording this."

"Ara ara….that isn't supposed to happen…"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS ISN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN?" Hitsugaya's body glowed increasingly brighter and he struggled to fall to the ground with dignity despite his insides feeling like they were literally shifting. "ARGHH AHHH!"

Kurotsuchi felt a brief moment of glee as the youngest captain's body and sword did eventually explode into hundreds of balls of reishi. But that wasn't quite right. Every single particle was supposed to break apart, and essentially, they weren't supposed to see anything. Hitsugaya was supposed to just disappear from existence.

Urahara, on the other hand, was about to cast a kido spell to contain the balls of light that were Hitsugaya Toshiro before any more damage could ensue or one of the balls floated away. It wouldn't do well for the boy to be missing a body part when Kisuke figured out how to put him back together.

"Kagome-chan! Stop running!"

Captain and former captain's eyes flew to the side as a little girl came barging in on the scene, blind to the events in the area, and ran right into the sparkling lights.

"NO!" The little girl shouted with tightly closed, teary eyes. And she let out a long, loud wail. Whether it be because the small child was throwing a tantrum and was upset or because she was standing in a reiatsu heavy spot, the researchers did not know.

It happened faster than the two men could react. "Hitsugaya" glowed brighter, and the next thing they knew, no sign of the ice captain nor his reiatsu could be detected.

"Well, that was not how it was supposed to go but the end result was desirable. Come, Nemu, we shall return to the lab and review the notes. Good bye, Urahara Kisuke." The captain opened a senkaimon and disappeared.

"Toshiro..." the shop owner let his bucket hat shadow his eyes. He watched as an anxious mother collected her upset child and dragged her away.

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Question of the day: scale of hello no to yasss, how did you feel about where everyone ended up at the end of Bleach?


	2. Chapter 2

All was quiet in the house. All was dark. It was not empty. But it was emptier.

The small child stood in the shadowed room with her pink bunny plushie ghosting the floor. Blue eyes stared up at a blue gray urn. It was a new addition to the tiny shrine honoring the family's ancestors. Her hand reached out to touch it. Really, to bring it down, but something stopped her. Her eyes welled with tears and her lip trembled.

"But why?" Kagome whispered and waved her bunny. "WHY?!"

Hallway lights streamed into the room and hurried steps approached.

"Kagome-chan!" her mother scooped her up before she could throw her stuffed animal at the shrine.

"I GOT TO HELP PAPA!"

"Kagome-chan! Stop it!" the mother carried the struggling child towards the doorway. Cries from an infant echoed down the stairs.

"WHY?! WHY IS PAPA IN THERE?!"

"Papa is gone now!" her mother shouted. "Please! Please Kagome-chan! Please stop crying for Mama!"

"MAMA DID BAD! YOU PUT PAPA IN THE FIRE!"

The older woman gasped and, before she knew it, her hand reached to strike Kagome, but she stopped just shy before breaking out into tears.

"Kagome-chan," the Higurashi elder came upon the scene and ushered the little girl away. The grandfather deposited the child in bed and brushed away the tears. "It's not Mama's fault that Papa is gone. You shouldn't yell at your mother." Grandfather Higurashi petted the girl until she calmed.

Just as she fell asleep, a young boy's voice whispered to her, 'You shouldn't make your mother cry."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/n: Alright, i got no excuse for not updating. Instead of writing anything for any of my current fics, I've been dumping little bits and one shots of random Kagome-centric crossover plot bunnies into a document. Maybe I'll just dump the whole thing here one day and just call it Kagome Plot Rabbits or something. Also typed a bunch up for some alternate universe IchigoxRukia fic that may or may not see the light of day. Onwards...**

~~~Hitsugaya~~~

All he saw was darkness. No. That wasn't right. He didn't see anything. There were no eyes with which to see. There was no body. Was this what lay beyond the afterlife? Just nothing? Was this where his soul would wait before reincarnation? God, he hoped he wasn't going to be reborn a hollow like Kusaka. That would have been the rotten cherry on top of his rotten day. Was it even the same day? How much time had passed?

Hitsugaya did not know how long until he finally felt something change in his environment. But one day(?), pink blinked into existence. A soft pink that covered walls, the ceiling, and even the blanket draped over him. Out of the corner of his eye, a bunny shaped clock sat on a table next to a plushie of a lamb. Had he been reincarnated into a girl? Hands rubbed his eyes. Those hands were small but were not those of an infant.

'Something is wrong.' If he were 50 years younger, panic would have set in.

The actions were not of his conscious. He was audience to the daily goings of a little girl. He saw what she saw but noticed more beyond her focus. He heard through her ears but while she dismissed some sounds as background noise, he took note. And what Hitsugaya Toshiro noted now was that he was fucked.

Toshiro rarely cursed but he felt this was an appropriate time to do so, if not the most appropriate time ever. "Why the fuck am I in the body of a little girl?! And I can't even fucking control the fucking body? If I ever see that damn Urahara or that fucking clown again…' If he had his powers, the room, probably the house, no, the town would be iced over from just his angry reiatsu.

Eventually, he calmed. He still had his soul. He didn't know how much reiryoku he had but definitely not enough to exert any reiatsu. The captain worried he'd never recover his reiryoku now that he was in a different and already occupied body. For the umpteenth time, he cursed those crazy inventors.

Kagome was the little girl's name. He didn't know how old she was but he wagered somewhere between 5 to 7 human years. She was a quiet child, but he wasn't sure if that was her personality or if it was due to circumstances. Little Kagome was mourning her father and was taking his death as well as most children probably. That is, not well at all.

" _Kagome-chan, are you ready?" Haruna, Kagome's mother asked as the little girl shuffled over. The mother took Kagome's hand in hers but the little girl snatched it back to grip the strap of her backpack with eyes downcast. Haruna's eyes wet at the girl's cold shoulder._

 _They walked home from school in silence and when they reached the steps of their shrine, Kagome sprinted up them to leave Haruna behind._

"You shouldn't make your mother cry," Toshiro scolded one night. Sure, he sympathized with the brat but she was being a bit unfair. Despite being fairly young himself, it was easier for him to be around adults. Maybe it was because he only had one friend as a small child in Rukongai. While the captain fell into despair at the prospect of never again seeing his childhood friend Momo, he didn't notice Kagome blinking the fatigue away to look around the room with wide eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Most people would probably be distracted from their daily lives for a long while after a death in the family. For Kagome, the muffled voice of a boy stole her attention. The mumbles were clearer before bed when she closed her eyes. After the first three nights of yelling for her grandfather to check her room for monsters, she slept in the older man's room and that's when she realized he couldn't hear it. But she also heard that old people didn't have great ears.

The occurrences were not numerous but happened often enough that curiosity and a bit of fear sprouted within her. Kagome started to observe the people around her to see if they acted any differently when she heard the sounds but nobody ever did.

On the playground, her teacher and helpers watched concerned as Kagome sat alone on a swing. A bright child bounded over with a flower to show her friend, but Kagome shook her head, pulling a frown from her classmate. If Sara-chan couldn't get Kagome to play, others stood no chance.

Kagome's head snapped up and she looked around. "You say something?" She asked Sara who had claimed the neighboring swing and was trying to see how high she could go.

"Hmm? Nooooo!" Sara gleefully shouted.

Kagome moved away from the laughing children. She found a quiet bench to sit on and started kicking her legs nervously. Her back straightened. There it was again! She swore she heard mumbling but nobody was around.

One day on the walk home, Haruna stopped to make small talk with a florist and left Kagome to browse the plants at the store front. The little girl wandered from flower to flower with impatience.

She distantly heard a boys voice but the words were clear, " _Watch out_!"

Kagome looked up and jumped out of the way of a bike's path.

" _Be more aware of your surroundings_ ," the voice scolded.

"Hello?" Kagome whispered to the air. She glanced around. "Mr. Boy Sir Person? Did you tell me about the bike?"

She heard nothing except the sound of birds for about half a minute.

" _You can hear me._ "

Kagome perked up even more at the words. "Are you the one who's been making all the weird noises?"

" _I do not make weird noises,_ " he stated with a hint of wonder.

"You are, aren't you?!" She waved her arms around wildly. "Why you keep making scary sounds at bed time?!"

" _In my defense, I didn't know you could hear me_ ," Hitsugaya almost lost himself in thought.

"I'm Kagome! What's your name?!"

"Kagome-chan? Who are you talking to?" Her mother came up behind the child and cocked her head to the side with a fresh bouquet in her arms.

Kagome scrunched up her face before spinning away from Haruna and crossing her arms.

" _Treat your elders with respect, little girl._ "

The child stomped her foot. "I don't wanna."

" _Stop being a brat or else,_ " the captain threatened with the same tone he used on Matsumoto and his squad.

Kagome shivered, feeling a bit cold all of a sudden. She shrunk back and grabbed her mother's hand on instinct. The child's stubbornness kept her from apologizing but she silently kept contact with her confused mother all the way home.

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A/n: Happy holidays, my dear readers! I'm ready for the songs the end though.


End file.
